Flirtation

Because I have the only Gold Membership on Xbox Live, Gllen sometimes plays GTAIV online with my gamertag: GrowlyGrrl.

Last night, I got to witness just how entertaining this can be. Two minutes into an online match, Gllen started getting flirted with. Now, this is just the usual for me, but to Gllen, The Griefer, it is an entirely new experience. All the gamers were suddenly VERY talkative, and bumping up against his car and making comments about his "sweet red dot". I was laughing endlessly, as the other gamers helped him along and waited just before the finish line for him to catch up. He also received many a comment about his skills. Now, for the record, Gllen is pretty damn good at GTAIV. It's just that he got so much more respect as a "girl" than he ever would by being the asshole he most normally is in games. We were laughing our asses off. He even made me talk to an especially persistent fellow who basically creamed his pants when he heard my voice (and then proceeded to broadcast to all other players that I was a REAL girl.)

Being a girl gamer is good. Watching Gllen get flirted with by other dudes... priceless.

My Victory

I recently picked up my DS and started to play Zelda Phantom Hourglass again. It is my second time playing, and I was dedicated to completing it in full. One of the major tasks I had to accomplish was catching some fish for the old fisherman, including the legendary Nepatoona. This has caused some excitement in our household, as several times I've thought that I had finally caught it, only to be disappointed by the Rusty Swordfish. Gllen would stop whatever he was doing, watch me hyperventilate until the fish was reeled in and then console me when my dreams were crushed.

On Friday, my dreams came true. I was alone in the living room, and I saw the shadow of a great fish. I cast my fishing rod. Something caught a hold of my lure and I yanked. It was on the line! I started to pull and reel, trying to outsmart the fish. It jumped in the air, and I saw a glimmer of blue. I started to scream. After harrowing minutes, I finally reeled in the beast, and to my sheer joy, it was the Nepatoona! I shouted, "I caught it! I caught the Nepatoooooooona!" I ran into Gllen's office and he was oblivious to everything, buried under headphones. I shook him and shoved the DS at him.

"Boyfriend, I got the Nepatoona! Look at him!!!!!" Gllen stared at the screen in disbelief for a few seconds, and then looked at me with wonder. Slowly, his hand came up to give me a high five. He looked at the screen again, his excitement beginning to grow... I was bouncing with joy. Finally, he exclaimed, "That's Awesome! Fist-pump for three years!"

We both started fist-pumping, chanting "Nepatoona!" Its so great that I am dating a gamer who can appreciate these things.

Celebrating 3 Years Today

Exactly three years ago, Gllen lured me over to his house for, what he considered at the time, a date. We had been emailing each other about music and we got onto the topic of Nintendo. When Gllen found out that I still owned the original system plus a bunch of games, he freaked out (with joy). I proposed that we battle each other in a tournament. He accepted. Gllen told me in an email: "I warn you, I'm a competitive little fuck when it comes to games. Be prepared for some shit-talking and whining." This is how he tried to woo me.

Our tournament was dubbed by Gllen as The Inaugural NES and BBQ Skillz Nerd-Off. I have no idea why there is BBQ in there, except that Gllen was obsessed with saying it at the time. (It turned out to be quite fitting, since my sister and I used to sing "Bar-ba-que!" to the melody of the Bowser AirShip levels in Mario 3 - You had to jump over flames and stuff - try it yourself.) I even questioned him about it and, to explain, he showed me an example of how he converses with others:

Me: BBQ
Me: i can't count that high
Mike: LOLCHA
Me: rofl mayo
Mike: LOLWTFGOURMAYO
Me: moyostard
Mike: mayobutter
Me: mayo cha
Mike: mallorca
Mike: IBIZA 200 BPM

Again, this is how he tried to woo me.

When he started speaking in full sentences again, we both discovered that in our youth, each of us had played the Little Mermaid game. When I mentioned that I still had the game, he said, "Umm... is this the disney little mermaid? The one where you shoot bubbles at fishies (sega echo-ish)? I played and beat that game at my grandparents house ALL THE TIME! I can't believe you actually have that! I have mad little mermaid skillz. Seriously, you might want to leave that one at home, you have no chance." He even "designed" a t-shirt for the Winner based on his mermaid skillz:

I responded by showing him the Loser shirt which he would be wearing:

And so began the brilliant repartee between the two of us that still continues to this day.

In the end, there was no winner of the tournament, because Gllen disqualified himself by being an incessant button-masher. And even though I wasn't thinking it was a date at the time, if you look at the dictionary definition of Date, then I guess it was "A particular point or period of time at which something happened or existed, or is expected to happen." So this is the place we mark as "The Begining" of our relationship.

Happy Anniversary.

Dexterity

I accidentally ended up at the Circuit City liquidation sale yesterday and on impulse got all the necessities for Guitar Hero. Actually, I'm pretty pleased that the game and two guitar controllers only cost me $44.00. That's leet. Anyway - Gllen and I got it all hooked up and started to play the game. Literally, after 1 SONG his hand started cramping up. Let me point out that Gllen sits in front of computer all day has developed some serious carpal tunnel syndrome. So, the motion of playing the guitar buttons was really causing some pain in his pinkie finger.

I wanted to play the game, so I had to devise a solution: I grabbed two q-tips and a bandaid. Cut the bandaid in half. Created a splint on Gllen's pinkie finger with the q-tips secured by the two pieces of bandaid.

Gllen experimentally wiggled his finger and grinned. We played a song and afterward Gllen exclaims "It worked!"

Two minutes later he started complaining about his thumb hurting. I'll probably have to start giving him hydrocortisone injections in order to get him to play this game.